cedar Summary and Overview

(Heb. e'rez, Gr. kedros, Lat. cedrus), a tree very frequently mentioned in Scripture. It was stately (Ezek. 31:3-5), long-branched (Ps. 80:10; 92:12; Ezek. 31:6-9), odoriferous (Cant. 4:11; Hos. 14:6), durable, and therefore much used for boards, pillars, and ceilings (1 Kings 6:9, 10; 7:2; Jer. 22:14), for masts (Ezek. 27:5), and for carved images (Isa. 44:14). It grew very abundantly in Israel, and particularly on Lebanon, of which it was "the glory" (Isa. 35:2; 60:13). Hiram supplied Solomon with cedar trees from Lebanon for various purposes connected with the construction of the temple and the king's palace (2 Sam. 5:11; 7:2, 7; 1 Kings 5:6, 8,10; 6:9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 20; 7:2, 3, 7, 11, 12; 9:11, etc.). Cedars were used also in the building of the second temple under Zerubbabel (Ezra 3:7). Of the ancient cedars of Lebanon there remain now only some seven or eight. They are not standing together. But beside them there are found between three hundred and four hundred of younger growth. They stand in an amphitheatre fronting the west, about 6,400 feet above the level of the sea. The cedar is often figuratively alluded to in the sacred Scriptures. "The mighty conquerors of olden days, the despots of Assyria and the Pharaohs of Egypt, the proud and idolatrous monarchs of Judah, the Hebrew commonwealth itself, the war-like Ammonites of patriarchal times, and the moral majesty of the Messianic age, are all compared to the towering cedar, in its royal loftiness and supremacy (Isa. 2:13; Ezek. 17:3, 22, 23, 31:3-9; Amos 2:9; Zech. 11:1, 2; Job 40:17; Ps. 29:5; 80:10; 92:12, etc).", Groser's Scrip. Nat. Hist. (See BOX-TREE T0000636.)

The Hebrew word erez, invariably rendered "cedar" by the Authorized Version, stands for that tree in most of the passages where the word occurs. While the word is sometimes used in a wider sense, #Le 14:6| for evergreen cone-bearing trees, generally the cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) is intended. #1Ki 7:2; 10:27; Ps 92:12; So 5:15; Isa 2:13; Eze 31:3-6| The wood is of a reddish color, of bitter taste and aromatic odor, offensive to insects, and very durable. The cedar is a type of the Christian, being evergreen, beautiful, aromatic, wide spreading, slow growing, long lived, and having many uses. As far as is at present known, the cedar of Lebanon is confined in Syria to one valley of the Lebanon range, viz., that of the Kedisha river, which flows from near the highest point of the range westward to the Mediterranean, and enters the sea at the port of Tripoli. The grove is at the very upper part of the valley, about 15 miles from the sea, 6500 feet above that level, and its position is moreover above that of all other arboreous vegetation. ("Of the celebrated cedars on Mount Lebanon, eleven groves still remain. The famous B'Sherreh grove is three-quarters of a mile in circumference, and contains about 400 trees, young and old. Perhaps a dozen of these are very old; the largest, 63 feet in girth and 70 feet high, is thought by some to have attained the age of 2000 years." --Johnson's Encycl.)

CE'DAR . Undoubtedly several cone-bearing, evergreen trees are included under this title. But ordinarily, and especially when the full form is given ncedar of Lebanonn the still famous tree of that name (Cedrus Libani) is meant. The Scriptures correctly give its characteristics. Comp. Ps 92:12; Eze 31:3-6; 1 Kgs 7:2; Neh 10:27; Song of Solomon 4:11; Hos 14:6; Isa 2:13; Isa 10:19. It is one of the most valuable and majestic evergreen trees of Eastern forests, and is found upon Mounts Amanus and Taurus, in Asia Minor, and other parts of the Levant, but in its greatest perfection on Mount Lebanon. It grows to the height of 70 or 80 feet. The branches are thick and long, spreading out almost horizontally from the trunk, which is sometimes 30 or 40 feet in circumference. Eze 31:3, 1 Chr 24:6, 1 Kgs 15:8. Maundrell measured one which was 36 feet and 6 inches in the girth, and 111 feet in the spread of its boughs. The wood is of a red color and bitter taste, which is offensive to insects, and hence it is very durable and admirably adapted for building. A specimen of this wood in the British Museum is labelled "Cedar of Lebanon, from Palace of Nimrod; 3000 years old." Cedar was used for the most noble and costly edifices, as the palace of Persepolis, the palace of Solomon, and the temple at Jerusalem. This timber served not only for beams for the frame and boards for covering buildings, but was also wrought into the walls. 2 Sam 7:2; 1 Kgs 6:36 and Num 7:12. The gum which exudes from the trunk and the cones is as soft and fragrant as the balsam of Mecca. This tree, there is reason to believe, once quite covered the mountains of Lebanon between the heights of 3000 and 7000 feet. Rev. H. H. Jessup has visited and described eleven distinct groves of cedars on those mountains, including, altogether, several thousand trees. The principal forest visited by travellers is 8 hours' ride from Baalbec, on Cedar Mountain (Jebel el-Arz), about 6300 feet above the sea-level, a little below the summit. Baedeker (Palestine and Syria, p. 505) thus describes it: "The group occupies the top of a hill with five culminating points of various sizes, on the eastern and western sides of which runs a water-course. It consists of about 350 trees, the tallest of which does not exceed 78 feet in height. The rock on which they grow is white limestone, and the decaying spines, cones, and other matter have formed a dark-colored soil. The oldest trees, about 9 in number, are on the southeastern height. In the midst of the north-western group stands a Marnmite Cedars of Lebanon. (After Photographs.) chapel. Unfortunately, no care whatever is taken of these noble trees. The goats eat all the young shoots, and cedar branches are even used for fuel, particularly on the occasion of an annual festival in August. Countless names are cut on the trunks of the trees. ... In gloomy weather the sombre group and its black surroundings form a weird and wild picture." In most of the botanic gardens and arboretums of Europe and America growing specimens of this monarch of Eastern forests may now be seen. It thrives especially well in England. In the general appearance of its bark and foliage it is much like the larch, but it is a far more widely-branching and massive tree. Dr. G. E. Post, of Beirfit, Syria, who is a good botanist, supplies the following interesting information concerning this tree: "The first mention of the cedar in the Bible is in Lev 14:4, 1 Chr 24:6, Lev 14:49, Jer 25:51, 2 Kgs 5:52, with the parallel passage. Num 19:6. The children of Israel were then in the peninsula of Mount Sinai. Did the cedar grow in that region? or is the cedar there alluded to a different tree from the cedar of Lebanon? "There are other trees known now in Syria as cedars. The Aleppo pine is one, and it is quite probable that this tree may have grown in that region, although not more so than that the cedar itself was there. The juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus) still grows in the peninsula of Sinai; and being of the same family as the cedar, it is allowable to regard it as the plant here intended. A species of juniper is known in English by the name of 'cedar.' In view, however, of admitted changes in climate in all the countries bordering the eastern end of the Mediterranean, there is nothing to forbid the possibility of the cedar of Lebanon having once existed on Sinai. It grows on the Atlas chain and the mountains connecting Taurus with the Himalayas, as well as in the latter groups. May it not have found in Sinai a connecting station between its distant homes in the Atlas and the Lebanon and Himalayas? "Some very foolish things have been said about the durability of the cedar. It has been pronounced, perhaps from trials on specimens taken from European or American trees, a crooked, inferior, perishable wood. In point of fact, it is notable for toughness, durability, and adaptedness to the climate and circumstances of Syria. There is no such thing as a rotten cedar. Branches broken off by the tempests lie unrotten on the ground. The trunks, where barked by travellers or peeled by the lightning, remain dead, but uncorrupted. The name of Lamartine, carved on one of the giant trees 109 years ago, is fresh and legible to-day. All other woods indigenous to Syria are liable to the attacks of insects or a kind of dry rot. Cedar beams are unchangeable. No greater injury has been done to Lebanon than denuding it of its kingly tree. The cedar is a desirable wood for carving. Isa 44:14. It is hard, fragrant, takes a high polish, which develops a beautiful grain, and it grows darker and richer by time. "'The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted.' Ps 104:16. The aromatic sap of this tree exudes from the slightest scratch, and distills in copal drops down the bark. If two branches rub together, they soon unite. Several trees are often joined in this way through the superabundance of their vitality. "'The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.' A palm tree attains its height in a hundred years or less; a cedar grows for thousands of years. A palm tree soon bears fruit and flourishes; a cedar grows slowly and tarries long before it bears fruit, but it continues to bear fruit long centuries after the palm tree has decayed. It continues fat and flourishing (green). The cedar is ever green. Its vitality is equally apparent in the heat of summer and the snows of winter. How apt a likeness of the righteous, who grows in grace as he lengthens out his years! The cedar still bears multitudes of cones when it has been riven by lightning, torn and almost uprooted by the wind. So affliction but develops the graces of the righteous, and the green branches bear abundance of fruit when the blighted ones have been severed and for ever lost." See Lebanon.

'Erez, from 'aIraz, "coiled" or "compressed," a deeply rooted tree. According to Scripture, tall (Isaiah 2:13), spreading (Ezekiel 31:3), fit for beams, boards, and pillars (1 Kings 6:10; 1 Kings 6:15; 1 Kings 7:2), masts (Ezekiel 27:5), and carved work as images (Isaiah 44:14). The timber for the second temple, as for Solomon's, was cedar (Ezra 3:7). As our modern cedar is hardly fit for masts, and is of a worse quality than inferior deal, probably by the "cedar" of Scripture is meant Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris). In Ezekiel 27:3 the Septuagint translate "masts of fir," and by "fir" is meant cypress. Moreover the deodara cedar (the tree of God, Psalm 104:16, the sacred tree of the Hindus, of which they construct their temples) has the durability wanting in our modern cedar of Lebanon. The Nineveh inscriptions state that the palaces were in part constructed of cedar; this proves on microscopic examination to be yew; so that by "cedar of Lebanon" the wood of more than one tree is meant, the pine cedar, Scotch fir, yew, deodara. Cedar was also used in purification, probably the oxycedrus abounding in Egypt, Arabia, and the wady Mousa; indeed, the greater cedar not being found there, the tree meant in the laws of purification must have been a distinct one (Leviticus 14:4; Numbers 19:6). It was anciently burnt as a perfume at funerals. In a hollow of Lebanon, where no other trees are near, about 400 cedars of Lebanon stand alone, 3,000 feet below the summit and 6,400 above the sea. Only eleven or twelve are very large and old. This forest is regarded by the neighboring people with superstitious reverence. Sennacherib had desired to "go up to the sides of Lebanon and cut down the tall cedars thereof" (2 Kings 19:23), but was baffled by the interposition of Jehovah. Another Assyrian king accomplished it, as an inscription at Nimrud states in recording his conquests in N. Syria. But God in retributive justice "consumed the glory of the Assyrian's forest" figuratively; fulfilling His threat, "the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few that a child may write them" (Isaiah 10:18-19). Solomon's 80,000 hewers must have inflicted such havoc that the cedar forest never recovered it completely. The cedar of Lebanon is an evergreen, its leaves remaining on for two years, and every spring contributing a fresh supply.